A Parable of Immortality
by Catching Rain
Summary: When a patient dies from a GUILT-induced cardiac arrest, Derek gets some otherworldly advice... from her ghost.


**Disclaimer:** Atlus owns Trauma Center and all of its characters, sadly. I only own the OCs.

**Author's Rant:** I feel so bad... I haven't written anything in forEVER. Seriously, I need to get my butt in gear. So, this is my first ever Trauma Center fic. I've been meaning to write it for a while, since I beat the game just mere hours before it had to be returned to Blockbuster, but hadn't gotten around to it. So I figured, I might as well get it written, since now I have no excuse (yay for summer vacation!!). BTW, I'm not a doctor or a surgeon. I'm a junior in high school. So please excuse my medical inaccuracy. I don't even know if there is a St. Peter's hospital in San Diego, I just made something up.

Oh, and, this is for TCGeek, whose many stories got me motivated to write again. :D

ooo

**A Parable of Immortality**

Doctor Derek Stiles stared up at the building where he worked. Caduceus USA was a renowned medical research facility that doubled as a hospital for people with "incurable" diseases. One such disease, for example, was GUILT, or Gangliated Utrophin Immuno Latency Toxin. At one point in time, the death rate of people who contracted GUILT was 99.9. Now, it was reduced greatly, to a mere 43. In fact, for the most part, GUILT had been eradicated. Since the head of Delphi, the source of the man-made disease, had been taken into custody, only the remnants of the disease that spread from person to person remained. Now, Derek had his work cut out for him. Most of his work had consisted of operating on GUILT patients. Of course, there will still some GUILT patients who needed operating on, but he had passed the torch by teaching other surgeons how to deal with each of the different strains. With one exception...

Savato.

To this day, Derek Stiles remained the only one who knew how to operate on a mature strain of Savato, and he counted his blessings. The reason for this was that, since operating on Professor Blackwell, he had not encountered a patient who had contracted it. Derek assumed that the only way to contract it was to be injected with it, which, in his opinion, was a good thing because Delphi had been defeated.

Derek sighed and started through the doors. No sooner had he walked in, however, that he was met by an uproar from Angie, Tyler and Leslie, all at once. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! What's the emergency?"

"We have a patient being transferred here-" Angie started.

"From San Diego because she-" Tyler continued.

"Contracted GUILT!" Leslie finished. The chorus overwhelmed Derek, but it was enough to make him chuckle at his friends, who did not think they were being funny.

"Why is she being transferred here?" he questioned. "I'm not the only one who knows how to operate on it anymore."

The other three exchanged nervous glances, and then said together, "Savato." They didn't need to say anything more; Derek got the picture.

"Oh." _So much for my theory,_ Derek thought.

Once he was able to sit down in his office and look at the patient's chart, Derek understood why his friends were all in such a huff when he came in. The patient's name was Noa Benson, sixteen years old, female, height five feet six inches; weight one hundred and seventeen pounds, blah blah blah... Admitted to St. Peter's in San Diego when she complained of severe chest pain. She was tested, and the results showed that the Chiral reaction was positive, revealing her heart was infected with Kyriaki. They immediately prepped her for surgery and all went well, but two days later, the Chiral reaction was, once again, positive. They had to operate on her again, this time fighting Paraskevi. She was still weak from the first surgery and her vitals were low throughout the second one.

Finally, when they thought she was cured, she complained of chest pains again. The tests showed that this time, a mature Savato strain had developed, and they had no choice but to transfer her to Caduceus. Her older brother, who she was visiting in San Diego, was standing in as legal guardian until her parents could fly out from Colorado. "This girl is a mess..." Derek muttered to himself. "Two surgeries in two days... will she be able to survive a third?"

The operation briefing was a little less than an hour later. Cybil was standing by with the anesthesia, and Dr. Clarks was going to observe. Angie was prepared, too, for she had seen Savato before. Leslie was waiting with Noa, who was a quiet girl, from what Derek had learned. He watched as Leslie prepped her for surgery.

"Okay, Miss Benson... we're going to put you under soon. Are you ready?" Leslie comforted.

Noa frowned slightly. "Almost." She reached over to her bedside table, and pulled a manila envelope from under the tray on it. "I'd like to ask you a favor. If, on the off chance that I don't make it, could you give this to my family? My brother, Trevor, if my parents aren't here, but specifically my mom, if you can. Also, if I die, tell them that it's not 'goodbye', but 'see you later,' okay?"

Leslie nodded gently. "Of course, dear." She took the envelope and clutched it against her chest, along with Noa's chart.

"One more thing..." Noa went on. "I'd like your honest opinion. What are my chances of making it out of this surgery alive?" The question tugged at Leslie's heart. She didn't want to discourage the girl, but she was asking for the truth...

"Well, I'll tell you that you're in good hands. Dr. Stiles is one of medicine's best surgeons, and he's got experience operating on this strain of GUILT. However... the number of surgeries you've had in such a short time isn't exactly a holiday for you. It all depends on how much your body can take," Leslie answered. Noa was satisfied, and thanked Leslie for being honest. She gave her nurse a hug, and then let Dr. Myers come in for anesthesia.

"I'm not afraid..." Noa mumbled to Leslie before falling asleep from the medicine Cybil gave her. Leslie gave the girl's hand a comforting squeeze and smiled before leaving the room. When Cybil had applied the anesthesia, she gave Derek two thumbs up and left as well.

Minutes later, Derek had made the first incision and was well into combating the webs that the Savato had created. Angie was ready and waiting for each new scalpel that Derek needed when the web melted the ones he used. It wasn't the super Savato that Derek had fought in Dr. Hoffman, but it still wasn't quite the walk in the park.

"Laser."

Angie handed him the laser, which he used to vaporize the smaller bodies that emerged from the new strand of web the mature body had formed.

"Scalpel."

Derek had to volley between the two tools every time Angie had to pull out another scalpel. Every time he completely destroyed the web, the Savato would scurry over to another side of the heart and form a new one and the process would start all over again. By the third web, however, the Savato was getting tired, and he was able to corner it long enough to whittle down its outer layer and slice it with a scalpel. Then it would run away, and Derek had to do this process three times, as well. When it was finally weak enough, he injected the serum into the mature body. He used his Healing Touch twice in a row to slow it down long enough to inject it again, and it was finished.

"Good job, Dr. Stiles. Let's close her up," Angie congratulated. Derek didn't think there was room to talk just yet, however. Eyeing the patient's vitals, he noticed that they hung between 20 and 25. He tried injecting the stabilizer, but it was having no effect.

"Something wrong?" Dr. Clarks asked.

"The Savato is gone, but her vitals aren't recovering. I'm not sure what's going on..." Derek admitted. "Angie, are you sure the Chiral reaction is negative?"

"Hmm... according to this, Chiral reaction _is_ negative, but there's something weird..." Angie replied. "There's another reading on here that's skyrocketing, but it's not Chiral!"

"What!?" Dr. Clarks exclaimed. "Let me see..." he took the monitor out of Angie's hand and glanced at it. "What is this? I've never seen anything like it!"

"I dunno, but there's a membrane forming on the heart where the Savato was," Derek noticed, startled. "What is that thing? It looks like GUILT, but not any I've ever seen before!" He was right; it looked almost like Savato, but it was slightly smaller and had a turtle-like shell. It was using the membrane as a platform to move around on. "Okay... I'll try to work on this..."

"But Dr. Stiles! You have no idea what you're dealing with!" Angie cried, shocked that he would even suggest that.

"What else can we do? Give up? I don't think so!"

"He's right, Nurse Thompson. All we can do is keep moving forward and hope for the best. Dr. Stiles, I suggest you use the antibiotic to soften the membrane, and then use the scalpel and forceps to remove it," Dr. Clark said.

Derek took a deep breath and focused. "All right, let's get started." Carefully, so not to piss the... _thing_ off, he applied the gel as Dr. Clarks had instructed, then cut it and removed it by sections. Once it was all removed, however, it regenerated.

"Again!?" Angie cried.

"We'll just have to keep going," Derek replied, struggling to keep his calm. He removed the membrane and it regenerated twice more, before it seemed like it was finally finished.

"Phew... glad that's over. I wonder what... oh my god!"

The GUILT look-a-like had suddenly shed its shell, revealing its true size: twice that of a mature Savato. It began to flail around the heart, leaving massive tumors and lacerations in its wake.

"It's moving faster than I can suture the wounds and remove the tumors!" Derek growled helplessly. He had already expended his Healing Touch fighting the Savato. He desperately tried to keep up, and made sure that her vitals were at least in the double digits, but it was overwhelming him very quickly. To add to the problems, a loud, continuous beeping in his ear made him realize how little time he had.

"She's coding! Angie, get the defibrillator!" Derek barked. Angie wheeled the crash cart and prepped the defibrillator, handing the paddles to Derek when it had charged.

"Clear!"

No change. Her heart didn't jump. Derek charged it again.

"Clear!!"

Still no heartbeat. With every passing second, her chances diminished.

"CLEAR!!"

Desperation was clear in his cracking voice as he continually tried to save her, but to no avail.

"Clear! Clear!! C'mon, damn it! CLEAR!"

"Derek!" Angie said quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder. "...You have to call it."

Derek said nothing for a while. Usually, patients didn't get to him like this. But she was so young, much younger than he was, and she didn't get to live her life, and her parents had no idea what had happened to her, and he had no idea what the hell he was doing just now. All of the circumstances brought tears to his eyes, and he didn't bother to stop them. "...time of death, 09:16."

Falling to his knees and resting his head on the edge of the operating table, Derek wept. Angie stood by his side, crying too, and Dr. Clarks stood in shock, not knowing how it had happened. It went from successful to deadly in only a matter of seconds. Derek pounded his hand on the tile floor. "Damn it all! I couldn't save her! God damn it all!"

After what seemed like an eternity, Derek stood again, wanting to sew up the gaping hole in Noa's chest and give her body the respect of privacy. The tumors and lacerations were still there, but the thing that had caused them was dead, along with its host. It had achieved its mission for which it was probably created, and Derek felt it was only right to remove that putrid thing from her body. Angie surprised him by holding out a tray for him to put it on, but before she could dispose of it, Dr. Clarks stopped her.

"We need to know what that thing is so that we know how to fight it... next time." He seemed to struggle with those last words. "I'll put it in a test tube and send it down to Victor." With that, he took the tray from Angie and left. She turned back to see that he had already sutured Noa and was pulling the sheet over her, looking absolutely miserable.

"Doc-- Derek..." she murmured. "Please don't blame yourself for this. There was no way _anyone_ could've seen that one coming." She went to put her hand on his shoulder again, but he winced, and walked out of the room without a word. "Derek...!"

"I'll see you in a little bit, okay?" He needed to go tell Noa's family that their daughter, and sister, was dead. All because he screwed up. Angie's hand hung in midair, and her already sad expression fell even further. She let her hand fall to her side and left the room, too.

On the way to the waiting room, Leslie saw him and scuttled to catch up with him. "Hey, Dr. Stiles!" she greeted with her ever-friendly smile. "How did that operation go?"

Derek couldn't bear to look her in the eyes. "...she didn't make it."

Leslie's hand flew up to her mouth. "Oh, Derek, I'm sorry... I didn't mean... what happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know," he replied. He looked up to see her face was contorted in confusion. "I killed the Savato, and the Chiral reaction was negative, but something else was reading through the roof. It looked like a new strain of GUILT, but if it was, it would've read as a Chiral reaction."

"So... what did it do?"

"At first, it was just floating around on some membrane. I extracted it, but it kept regenerating, and then... it went berserk. It started causing tumors and lacerations faster than I could heal them, and I couldn't use my Healing Touch..." Derek balled his fists. "It wasn't causing any damage... If I had just let it be and waited until I knew what I was up against--"

"She would have been in excruciating pain," Leslie said firmly. "And she would have had to have _another_ surgery, probably very soon, and her body wouldn't have been able to handle a fourth surgery in under a week. Derek, you did everything you could." Leslie pulled a manila folder from her clipboard. "She asked me to take this to her family if she didn't make it. C'mon, I'll help you tell them, okay? I've met her brother and his wife; they were the ones who brought her in."

Leslie led the way out into the OR waiting room. There, a man stood when he saw Leslie, and summoned his family. There were Noa's parents, two brothers and a sister, along with another woman, presumably her brother's wife. "Nurse Sears!" The older brother, Trevor, spoke. "How is my sister? Is Noa okay?"

Derek spoke before Leslie had the chance of even drawing a breath. This was all his fault. He needed to take care of it. "When Noa was transferred here, you were told that she had contracted GUILT again, correct?"

Trevor nodded. "She had already been operated on twice at St. Peters because of this GUILT thing, and when they said only one doctor knew how to operate on this third strain, I feared the worst."

"Well, the good news is that the Savato, or the strain of GUILT you were told about, was successfully eradicated, even though it was a mature form and had already penetrated the heart," Derek explained, trying to keep his own emotions under control. A sigh of relief washed over them, but the father spoke up.

"Then... what's the bad news?"

"...your daughter didn't make it."

"What!?" exclaimed Trevor as his mother wailed and bawled into her husband's chest.

"You just said that the Savato was gone! What the hell happened to her?" cried the sister.

"After the GUILT was taken care of, we thought the worst was over, but her vitals wouldn't rise back to normal. The next thing we knew, there was another thing in Savato's place. We have no idea what it was, but it wasn't GUILT because there were no Chiral readings. We tried to take care of it, but it attacked her heart faster than we could stop it. She went into cardiac arrest, and we were unable to resuscitate her. I'm sorry."

Now, it was the younger brother's turn to speak. "You... you prick! Our sister is _dead_ and all you can say is 'I'm sorry?' What the hell kind of doctor are you?"

"Toby, stop that!" Trevor's wife tried to calm the boy down. "I'm sure this man did everything he could to save Noa."

Leslie took this chance to intervene. "I'm very, very sorry for your loss. I had the honor of talking to Noa before her surgery, and she asked me, in the event that she didn't make it, to give this to you. Specifically, her mother, if she was there." Leslie gave her most sympathetic smile as she handed the folder to Noa's trembling mother. "She also said to tell you, 'It's not goodbye, but see you later.'"

"Th-thank you," she whispered.

"It's my pleasure," Leslie went on. "And believe me, our research team will figure out what this new virus is, so that it doesn't affect anyone else, EVER, again."

"That doesn't help Noa," Toby muttered miserably.

"Shut _up_, Toby," said Trevor. "Can we... can we see her?"

"Of, yes, of course. I'll take you back right now," Leslie nodded. She turned to Derek. "Why don't you go sit down in your office, Derek? You could use a break." He said nothing, but nodded, and headed off to the office he shared with Angie. He prayed that she wouldn't be there, so he could be alone for a while, and to his fortune, she wasn't there. He sat down at his desk and put his forehead in his hands, a million thoughts of how he could have done things differently running through his head. Then he thought of the paperwork he had to do, and, as much as he hated doing it, he would do anything to keep his mind occupied at the moment.

The first thing that he did was begin to fill out a death certificate. He rummaged around in a drawer for a pen, and then grabbed the necessary form from a different drawer. "Noah... Benson... female... sixteen years old..." he muttered aloud as he wrote down the information. He had a strange feeling that he was being watched, but he shrugged it off. That is, until he saw a shadow on his desk from a person standing over his shoulder.

"You spelled my name wrong, you know."

Derek leapt up out of his chair and whirled around. His face paled considerably when he saw Noa Benson standing before him. "How... wha... what the... the world!?" he spluttered.

"What's the matter, Doctor? You act like you've never seen a ghost before," Noa laughed. "Oh, by the way, you're the only one who can see me right now. Only certain people can see ghosts and you're one of the lucky ones. Pretty cool, huh?"

_'Cool?' This girl has a strange sense of humor!_ Derek thought wildly, still at a loss for words.

"Anyway, I wanted to thank you for trying so hard to save me. It's not every day that you get the miracle doctor to operate on you," Noa continued.

"Erm... umm, you're welcome?" Derek replied slowly, sounding more like he was asking a question than answering a statement.

Noa laughed again. "But that's not the only reason why I'm here. Hmm... how do I put this delicately... get a move on!" she blurted out.

Derek stared in wonder. _And Leslie said this girl was _quiet_?? Somehow I doubt that..._ "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about love. Man, I knew you were dense, but I didn't think it was this bad." Noa saw the look on Derek's face go from confused to flushed in three seconds. "See? Now you get the picture. You should take every chance you get, because you'll never know when the next one comes along, or if they ever will again."

"Well, I'm sorry if I'd like to keep my private affairs just that!" Derek snapped.

"Oh, come on, everyone knows you love your nurse friend. I saw you talking to her before my operation and it was so obvious! Why are you so intent on not telling her how you feel?"

"Because I am, all right? I'm an adult and I can decide what I do for myself."

"Well..." Noa mused. "If you're going to be difficult like this, then I might as well show you something." She 'walked' (or as close to walking as a ghost can get) toward Derek and put her hand on his head. He suddenly felt very lightheaded and dizzy. When he heard a loud thud, he looked around... to see himself lying crumpled on the floor with a gash in his forehead from where his body had hit the corner of the desk.

"What the...!? What the hell did you do to me!?" Derek cried.

Noa only laughed. "Oops... I didn't mean for you to hit your head... Oh well," she shrugged. "Now, you're a ghost too, like me! Only, your body isn't dead, so you can go back. I want to show you something, but it's much faster if we're both ghosts. Come on!" She grabbed his hand and then, the next thing he knew, he wasn't standing in his office anymore. They were in some sort of a shanty, looking a man who was surrounded by empty beer bottles and half-eaten pizzas. He looked like he wasn't even aware that he was guzzling down enough alcohol to kill fifty penguins.

"Who is this guy?" Derek asked uncertainly.

"I'm not sure of his name, but I know his story. He was going to ask the girl he loved to marry him, and when he called her cell phone, some guy picked up. Turns out that she had been in a car accident and her phone was picked up by a passerby who'd stopped to help. The girl died, and now look at this poor fellow. He waited too long, and his chance slipped between his fingers."

"..."

Noa sighed. "Okay, onward to the next thing..." The shanty vanished, and now they were standing on top of a very tall building. There, standing on the opposite ledge, stood a woman, swaying back and forth, debating on whether or not she should jump. "This woman waited too long to tell the guy she loved, and when she found out that he was getting married to someone else, she went off the deep end. She killed the guy's fiancée, and now, this is where she is, choosing between life in prison or death without her love."

The door to the floors in the building below flew open, and a pair of cops ran out to try and catch the woman. The woman looked back that them, smiled wryly, and jumped. Derek winced as he heard the sickening thud on the pavement below.

"Depressing, huh?" Noa suggested. "Well, I have one more person to show you, and then I'll take you back to Caduceus, okay?" Derek really was in no position to object because she was his only way back, but it didn't mean he had to like it. The rooftop disappeared, and then they were in a small town, where a boy of fifteen or sixteen sat alone on the curb. He looked like he was contemplating something.

"What's up with this kid?" Derek asked. "He doesn't looked depressed or anything."

"No, he's not..." Noa admitted. "His name is Brendan Fisher. He has no idea, but the girl who was going to confess to him died during surgery today."

And for once in his life, Derek _wasn't _dense. His eyes widened in realization. "He was _your _love," he gasped.

Noa nodded sadly. "Yes. I've known him since he was only ten. He's a good friend of Toby's, and I've always thought of him as my little brother. But, it wasn't too long ago that he asked me out, and I was scared, so I turned him down. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I loved him. I didn't get the chance to tell him before I left for San Diego, 'cause he was camping with his dad, and I was going to tell him when I got back. Now, I know that I won't be back, and there's nothing more in the world I'd like more than to tell him." In a flash, they were back in Derek's office, his unconscious body still lying on the floor.

"So... that's it, I guess. I wanted to show you what happens when you wait too long. You'll regret it, trust me," Noa explained. Her sullen look changed back into a mischievous smile when she said, "But you won't be able to go back into your body until it's at least halfway conscious, so we need someone to find you..." she looked around the room and spotted a flower vase with nothing but water sitting on the windowsill. "Perfect!"

Derek had a nagging feeling that he knew what Noa was going to do. "Hey, wait, don't do that! That's a gift for my mo--" Too late. She poured the water around Derek's feet to make it look like he slipped, and then let it fall to the ground and shatter into a bunch of tiny pieces. "Aww, come on, was that really necessary?"

"Well, we certainly can't shout, 'Hey look! Doctor down in here!' No one would hear us," Noa joked. "We had to attract someone's attention."

And attract attention they did. Unfortunately for Derek, he found out just how heart-wrenching Angie's scream could be.

"Oh my god...! Derek!" Angie screeched. She rushed to his side and immediately checked for a pulse. She tried shaking him a little to get him to stir, but with his consciousness floating behind her, she wasn't going to succeed any time soon. "Oh my god..." she said again. She shouted over her shoulder, "Someone come quickly!" Returning her attention to Derek's unconscious form, she gently brushed the hair away from the gash on Derek's forehead, which looked much worse than it actually was. "Oh, you klutz..." she murmured. Some other nurses hurried in, and Angie asked them to bring a stretcher and some gauze.

"So... what do we do now?" Derek asked.

"We? _You_ have to follow your body and wait until you think you'll be able to re-enter your body. I'd say you're semi-conscious when your vitals are around 50 or so. They won't rise much higher than that since you're not conscious," Noa explained.

"What about you, then?"

Noa shrugged. "I dunno. I don't feel like going to Heaven just yet. I'll probably spook some people before my time here is up. Go on, now, they're taking you away!" Derek looked to see Angie and the two other nurses wheeling him away and a janitor come in to clean up the mess. "Thanks again for everything, Doctor."

Derek was unable to say anything before Noa vanished, leaving no choice but to follow himself as Angie led the stretcher down the hall. He found himself thinking about what Noa had said. _"You should take every chance you get, because you never know... You'll regret it, trust me_." He thought about how sad Noa looked when she told him of Brendan and how he'll never get to know how she really felt. He wondered what he would do if anything ever happened to Angie... and he realized that he would be more than heart broken. Derek realized just how much he depended on Angie, for her smile when he was down and for her perseverance when things went wrong. And then he thought, _Noa is absolutely right_.

Derek snapped out of his reverie when the saw that they had stopped in a small room with but a single bed. With the nurses' help, Angie lifted Derek's body from the stretcher to the bed in one smooth motion. "Thanks, guys. I'll watch over him from here."

"Will he be all right?" one of the nurse's asked.

"Oh, he'll be fine. He just took a clumsy fall," Angie assured, but Derek could see the doubt in her eyes. The nurses took her word for it and left. Angie pulled up a chair and started wrapping the gauze around his head. "You dummy. You were so distracted from earlier that you hurt yourself. How many times have I told you not to space out like that...? You were lucky you weren't cut by any of the glass shards. Oh, listen to me ramble and you probably can't even hear me..." She bit off the excess bandage and used medical tape to tie down the loose end. Then she laid his head back down on the pillow and held his hand. "Well, I'll be here when you wake up." Angie took Derek's limp hand and held it between both of her own.

Derek took this chance to look at his body. It was breathing just a tad bit slow, but nothing too abnormal. He assumed this is what Noa meant when she said "semi-conscious." He had no idea what to do, but he acted on his gut. He touched his own shoulder, and just like that, he felt a stinging pain in his head and a warmth on his hand. He only saw the back of his eyelids, so he assumed that he was still asleep. But he willed himself to stir, first by twitching his hand and then by slowly opening his eyes. The first thing he saw was Angie sitting in a chair next to him, and a faint outline of Noa standing behind her.

"Hey there, sleepy head," Angie said quietly. "You took quite the fall. Just next time, try not to scare me, okay?"

Derek didn't say anything, but glanced to Noa, who held both thumbs up and cheered, "Go get her, tiger!" It was all he needed to hear.

"I love you," he whispered.

Angie looked taken aback. "C-Come again!?"

"I love you, Angie. It took a gh--" Derek stopped mid-sentence, realizing that no one would believe him if he said a ghost convinced him to take the next step. "It took a good blow to the head to make me realize it. I'm so stupid for not seeing it before. I love you," he repeated. Tears welled up in Angie's eyes, and she smiled.

"I love you too, Derek."

Outside the door, a particular blonde surgeon and his nurse friend peered through the crack.

"Ahaha! Derek said it first! Hand over that 20, Tyler!" Leslie cheered in victory. Tyler hung his head in defeat, reached into the pocket of his scrubs and smacked a 20 bill into Leslie's outstretched hand. They both jumped when someone put a hand on both of their shoulders.

"What are you idiots doing?" Victor asked skeptically. "Spying on them _again_? Why do you get such kicks out of watching those two play cat and mouse with each other?"

"Derek finally told her!" Leslie squealed.

"Oh, really now? Good for them," Victor said, sarcasm dripping off of his voice.

A couple of days later, Derek was making rounds for his post-op patients, when he heard someone call his name.

"Excuse me... Dr. Stiles?"

Derek turned around to see Noa's mother standing there. "Oh, Mrs. Benson." He couldn't really think of anything else to say.

"I know that this seemed unnatural, but... in the letter that my daughter wrote... she said that she was thankful that she was having this particular surgeon operating on her. She said that, even if she didn't make it, she felt safe knowing that the legendary Dr. Stiles was the one working on her. She wasn't scared... and her fear was my biggest fear. For that, there are no words to thank you enough. To know that, in the end, she wasn't afraid was a gift that only you could give her. I'd like to ask you to speak at her funeral," Mrs. Benson pleaded.

Derek was surprised. "Ma'am, are you sure? I mean, I didn't know her as well as many others did."

"I don't think she would've cared. Noa wanted to become a surgeon because of all the great things you've done. I think it would mean a lot to her if you would."

"Well, I'm flattered, but I don't think I'd be able to just skip work..."

"Consider it done."

Sidney Kasal came up from behind and patted Derek on the back. "I couldn't help but overhear your request, madam," he said. Then he turned to Derek, "If it's work that's holding you back, then don't sweat it. I think you were in need of a break, anyway."

"Really, sir?" Derek was flabbergasted. He knew that Sidney wasn't asking him, but telling him that he needed to go.

So that was how Derek found himself attending a funeral service in Boulder, Colorado. The rain was relentless and the wind was fierce. People stood crammed under tents so that they didn't get wet from the rain. Many people spoke, including both of Noa's parents, her grandmother, and a family friend, before it was Derek's turn to speak. He nervously made his way up to the podium, clearing his throat before beginning to talk.

"I didn't know Noa Benson all that well. I didn't even talk to her except for asking questions about where she hurt, how long it had lasted, the usual doctor questions. But when I heard her talk to Leslie Sears, her nurse, I realized just how extraordinarily strong she was. She said that she wasn't scared, and she was more worried about her family than her own failing health. This was shown to me even more when she was on the operating table. Noa had Savato, the strongest strain of GUILT ever known to man, and she endured it with more strength than the full grown men who had contracted it before her. Still, she was the only one to die. But she didn't die because of the Savato. She died because of something we had never seen before. However, Noa didn't die in vain. Because of her valiance, we can figure out what it was that killed her, and prevent it from killing anyone else.

"I'd like to read you a short poem. It's called 'A Parable of Immortality' by Henry van Dyke. 'As I stand on the mountaintop, the great bird approaches. She is small in my sight, but grows larger on approach until I am blessed with the full sight of her graceful wings, proud countenance and good company. All too quickly, she grows small again on the horizon and disappears from view. And I call out, "Look, there. She's gone." But there are other mountaintops beyond me. And at the precise moment when I note the great bird's departure form my view, I know there are new eyes taking up the sight of her. And fresh voices calling out, "Here she comes!"' With that, Derek moved from the podium. He was the last speaker before they lowered Noa into the ground.

Mrs. Benson couldn't thank him enough for giving her daughter courage when she needed it most. To Derek, it seemed that he couldn't thank Noa enough for returning the favor.

ooo

**A/N** (sniff) God, I made myself cry writing that last bit. I had to add a last minute disclaimer: "A parable of immortality" belongs to Tim Kring. The version I used is the one from Crossing Jordan.

And, yep, you guessed it, Stigma made an appearance. I've never played New Blood, though, so I had to look it up on YouTube. Cardia is apparantly a beast to kill?? I hope I did okay in describing the surgeries... sorry there wasn't a whole lot of DA fluff in there. I had meant to put more, but... it didn't turn out that way.

So, I hope you enjoyed it enough to drop a review! It would be much appreciated.


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